


The Blonde with the Gun by the Pool

by Miss_M



Category: The Nice Guys (2016)
Genre: A bit meta, Banter, Case fic (sort of), Diners, Family Fluff, Food, Gen, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Post-Canon, Smoking, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-22 16:52:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17063471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miss_M/pseuds/Miss_M
Summary: March gestured at the three of them sharing a booth in a diner on Sunset. “What could be better than this?”





	The Blonde with the Gun by the Pool

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ias](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ias/gifts).



> I own nothing.

_Los Angeles, 1982_

“Okay, I got strawberry pancakes…”

“That’s me! Thank you.” Holly beamed at the server as he set her plate down. 

“So you think it was the blonde?” Healy asked.

“French toast with a side of bacon, extra crispy.”

March pointed at Healy, seated on his left and on Holly’s right, with an unlit cigarette. “For the man in the middle, and the farmer’s breakfast with extra sausage is for me. Oh, and I had a shot of scotch in my coffee.”

“ _Of course_ it was the blonde,” Holly told Healy while pouring maple syrup on her pancakes. “There’s nobody else it could have been.”

“Sir, this is a diner,” the server told March. “We don’t serve alcohol.” 

“Huh,” Healy said and bit a strip of bacon in half. He chewed thoughtfully. “You sure it wasn’t the redhead?”

Holly pulled a face. “Get real! She was nowhere near Greenfield when it all went down.”

“The lady who took our order said it was fine,” March explained earnestly to the server. “Her name was Louise, and she was very helpful. She said I could get a double shot.”

The server looked equal parts underpaid and terrified. “Uh, there’s no Louise here. I don’t…”

“The redhead was on the balcony,” Healy said. “She could have shot Greenfield then thrown the gun in the pool, easy.” 

Holly put down her fork, annoyed at being challenged. “No, because she was holding a full glass of champagne and a spliff, _and_ she was on crutches, so unless she had the gun tucked in her bra, shot it with her one good foot, and threw it with her teeth, the gun was thrown by the blonde. She was the only one near both Max Greenfield and the pool when the shot was heard. Plus her acting upset to the police was awful. I’ve seen more convincing crying on _Dynasty_.”

March looked at his daughter and his partner discussing their latest case – which improbably involved multiple persons of interest with differently-colored hair, all named Meredith – then he looked back at the server. “They’re ignoring us. My coffee’s fine. Thank you.”

The server fled. 

Healy nodded. “Well, I’m convinced. Far be it from me to question your intuition or your ability to recognize bad acting.”

“Thank you,” Holly said with enormous dignity and attacked her pancakes. 

March managed to get his cigarette lit and spoke around it. “I think the brunette’s in on it.”

Off-the-wagon jokes were a crapshoot, but questioning their analysis of a case always got their attention. 

“Which brunette?” Holly and Healy said in unison.

March took his time taking a deep drag of nicotine and sipping his coffee. “The brunette who said she saw Max Greenfield alone by the pool while she was on the golf course getting serviced by the blind concert pianist.”

Holly shook her head. “No, no, no. She was too far away to have shot and killed Greenfield. It must be fifty yards from the pool to the golf course.”

“She did give the blonde an alibi by lying about her not being by the pool at the time of the murder. At the very least, the blonde and the brunette are in it together.” March ate some of his eggs and sausage.

Healy nodded again, chewing his French toast. “He’s got a point.”

“Thank you,” March said through a mouthful of egg. 

Holly’s petulant face was still that of a child. March found the sight oddly comforting, given that she’d be eighteen in three months and was studying to take her private-investigator exam right after her birthday. 

“But why?” Holly demanded. “Why would they help each other?”

March shrugged. “Maybe they’re lovers.”

Holly still looked unhappy, but she brightened as an idea struck her. “Maybe they’re sisters!” Her face fell. “But then they wouldn’t both be called Meredith.” She beamed again. “Maybe they’re half-sisters!”

“Or maybe,” Healy pitched in, “the brunette is the blonde’s agent and is helping her win a guest spot on _Dallas_ after her display of fake crying hit the local news.”

“Could be. Could be, we’ve seen weirder things.” March winked at his daughter, who sat across from him in the booth. “Not the world’s worst detective, huh?”

She looked down at her plate. “I can’t believe you still remember that,” she said softly.

Well, hell. The old words spoken in anger still stung, but March wasn’t the type to guilt-trip his own kid. He leaned across the Formica tabletop, over his and Healy’s plates. 

“Hey,” he said just as softly. “I don’t care what kind of detective I am. Pretty soon you’ll have your license, and then you can bring home the bacon for all three of us. It’s high time one of the Nice Guys was a girl.” 

Holly looked up, smiling and relieved, but Healy put down his fork and fixed March with a stare. 

“She’s not giving up her place at UCLA just so she can keep hanging out with us two old farts.”

Holly groaned theatrically – the display would have made her more Valley classmates proud. They’d had this discussion before, and always they talked about her as though she hadn’t helped them solve their very first case together, when she was still a kid and already immune to being ignored. “I don’t want to go to college. I want to work with you two.”

March pointed at her, like Healy couldn’t see her just fine. “See? She’s a modern, liberated woman who knows her own mind. What would she need college for, anyway?”

“So she can make use of her brain and have a better life,” Healy gritted out, still staring at March in that way which made bartenders and bookies quake in their loafers. 

March just scoffed, stuck his cigarette in his mouth, and gestured widely at the three of them sharing a booth in a diner on Sunset. “What could be better than this?”

Hoping to head off the only topic they ever really argued about, Holly mimed hitting a drum set with her knife and fork and vocalized a _badum tish_. Despite knowing him her whole life, she wasn’t always sure when her dad was making a joke and when he was just being, well, himself. Treating some of his comments as a joke was the safest course of action. 

Healy stopped glaring at her dad and gave her a smile. “Nice rim shot, honey.”

“… _shot_ ,” March jumped in, overlapping. The men exchanged a look. “She was doing a rim shot,” March explained, looking about as frazzled as their server had done. 

“Holland,” Healy said gravely and laid his hand on March’s hand on the tabletop. “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but she knows what a rim job is.”

March started to laugh, coughed. “Well sure, she’s grown up in this day and age, that doesn’t mean she should be dwelling on the logistics…”

Still holding his hand, Healy turned to Holly. “Do you want to tell him?”

Holly looked her father square in the eye. “Dad, I learned the difference when Jack moved in.”

March dropped his cigarette into his coffee cup. “What the hell have you been telling her? It’s one thing for her to go to a porn party when she was thirteen, but this is just…”

Healy sighed and looked at Holly again. The problem with being the one in the middle of the semicircular booth was that their conversations tended to resemble three-way tennis matches – it got tiring on the neck muscles.

“Holly,” Healy said. “Do you feel psychologically damaged or otherwise stunted by the information you have gleaned about your father’s sex life?”

After a few seconds’ maneuvering, Holly managed to spear a strawberry chunk on a heaping forkful of pancake. “No, I’m fine.” 

“How?” March implored. “Holly, sweetheart, just so I can sleep ever again knowing I raised you within something remotely resembling conventional expectations, tell me what filled in the details for you.”

Holly chewed, chewed – there was a lot of pancake – and swallowed. “My room is at the other end of the house from the bathroom, and still I always know when one of you is taking a shower. There, that’s how.”

March’s eye twitched. “Where? What’s how? I don’t get it.”

Healy briefly closed his eyes. “She’s saying that the walls at Hacienda March might as well be made from rice paper, and I’ll add that your voice gets into the countertenor range in certain situations.”

March stared at his daughter, stared at his partner, then fished the cigarette out of his coffee cup and tried lighting it again. After several tries, he got it to smolder, only just. 

Healy stopped trying to restrain his laughter, which made him sound like Muttley, and gave himself over to a full-bellied, Formica-shaking laugh.

“Are you okay, Dad?” Holly asked. “Do you feel like you need a drink?”

“A drink? No, no, I don’t need a drink.” March took a hard, coffee-soaked drag on his cigarette, which sounded like a clogged-up drinking straw. Healy was still laughing. “A lobotomy might be nice.” 

Holly got up and rounded the booth to give her father a hug, her arms wrapped tight around his shoulders, her long hair in his face, and her cheek laid on top of his head. “Oh Dad, I still love you, even though you sound like an opera singer in bed and are one of the world’s mediocre detectives.”

March hugged her around the waist. “Watch it, you. Or I’ll practice scales all night before your PI exam.” 

Healy was lighting a cigarette. He muttered around it. “All night, huh? Ever the optimist, pal.”

He offered the lit cigarette to March. March pushed Holly’s hair aside and accepted the uncaffeinated smoke with a smile that was just this side of smug.


End file.
